Live Photo converter for iPhone.

What a Live Photo really stores

A Live Photo is two files wearing one thumbnail. Behind the still sits about three seconds of video, recorded from a second and a half before you pressed the shutter to a second and a half after. The still is the photo; the motion clip is the extra.

That clip roughly doubles the size of the photo, and in most libraries it is watched once — if at all — and then never again. Live Photos are switched on by default on every iPhone, which means a library built over five years can hold thousands of motion clips nobody asked for.

Conversion is the honest middle path between deleting a photo and keeping a file twice the size it needs to be: you keep the picture, you drop the clip, and you keep the metadata that makes the picture findable.

What conversion keeps, and what it drops

The conversion writes a new still into your library and reports the space it returned. The original Live Photo is left alone until you decide to remove it, which means there is never a moment where the picture exists nowhere.

Converting one, or converting everything

Both modes exist because both are useful at different times. If you are browsing and spot a Live Photo you will never animate, convert it on the spot. If you have decided that motion clips are not part of how you use your library, run the batch and let it work through the list with per-item progress you can watch and cancel.

1. Preview first. The list shows thumbnails and sizes, so you can see what the conversion will return before you start.
2. Convert, then verify. Each item reports its before and after size, and items that would not save space are skipped and reported rather than silently processed.
3. Remove the originals when you are satisfied. Originals are deleted through the standard iOS confirmation and stay in Recently Deleted for 30 days.

For Live Photos stored only in iCloud, the app downloads the motion data first, which takes a moment per item. Nothing is ever uploaded, and the batch keeps going without blocking the rest of the app.

When you should keep the motion clip

Conversion is not free of consequence: you lose the movement. That is worth keeping for a specific set of photos, and it is worth dropping for everything else.

• Keep it for photos of people who matter, where the motion is the memory: a wave, a laugh, a first step.
• Keep it if you use Live Photo effects deliberately, such as long exposure or bounce.
• Convert it for scenery, food, documents, screenshots of Live Photos, and anything where the still says everything.
• Convert it for old photos you have never animated, which is most of them.

Most people end up converting the large majority of their Live Photos and keeping a handful. That pattern alone is usually worth a gigabyte or two, and it costs no memories.